Fall and the Puzzle of Loss

(All texts of our blog posts and email communications are human creativity-generated, with no AI assistance.)

Fall Equinox just passed us, and it marks the seasonal change from the peak Yang energy of Summer to the subtle Yin energy of Autumn, and eventually leads to the peak Yin time of Winter. The element most associated with the Fall is the Metal element, the element of structure, organization, and planning. This is the best time to get to bed earlier as the sun sets at an earlier time, to organize your life as the year end approaches, and to retreat inward to harvest the wisdom of the months past. The major emotional theme of the Fall is grief, when we mourn the passage of time and the vibrancy of life in the Spring and Summer.

Grief is most associated with the experience of loss. It can be loss of the self, loss of resources, loss of a valued possession, and the loss of a person. The latter can hit us in varying degrees, with the closest people to us causing the most impactful feeling of grief. Yet even the loss of a stranger, especially in tragic situations, can make us feel a pang of grief. This is because all of us have an interconnectedness.

Think of life as a giant puzzle piece. We all see this puzzle from a different vantage points, but our piece of this puzzle is always in the middle. Our puzzle piece morphs and transforms constantly, adding and subtracting grooves and branches as we add and remove people from our lives. The closer someone or something (if a pet) is to us, to more of our puzzle piece they touch. When we lose connection abruptly, we feel that loss more profoundly because that gaping space appears so suddenly, and stays there until the slow process we take to either morph ourselves to touch another puzzle piece or another puzzle piece morphs to fill that space. Sometimes, we lose connection slowly, through lack of connection on so many levels: physical, emotional, philosophical, intellectual, ideological. As that connection slowly peels away, we have time to morph and form different connections, so that loss isn't as shocking, sad, or even noticeable. Think of friends you had as a young child, and how many of those friends you still are in touch with. Now think of friends you lost from unresolved conflict or even death. The former can fill you with nostalgic memory, the other feels more emotional, with grief being the primary experience.

Part of grief is the loss of our interconnected puzzle piece.

When we lose an acquaintance, or even just an artist who have touched our emotions, or a public figure we know and sometime admire, we still feel a sense of loss. That's because a piece of the puzzle of our interconnectedness has disappeared; regardless of how far their connection is from us, we feel a shakiness, a loss of integrity, in the larger puzzle. It may be brief, but it is there.

I know several of our tribe at our Lemon Grove wellness space have suffered losses in the past year. And our family also suffered losses of friends and familial relationships. As we try to seek comfort, it is also important to sit with that sense of loss. There is wisdom in grief, a chance to know just how courageous your heart can be, and to understand the depth of your capacity for love. And that wisdom shapes your puzzle piece and, hopefully, inspires you to grow, transform, and reach out for a different type of connection, one that would nurture, grow with, and anchor you in your life.